Hebi (Fukutsu no Seishin)
"Being lucky does not mean the same thing as being blessed." Background Hebi entered the world heralded by thunder. His egg, one of only two, cracked open in an echo of the thunderclap above, his egg smashed open by the lightning bolt a millisecond prior. The other egg shattered from the pressure, the infant dragon inside not yet ready to face the outside world and meeting a swift, if gruesome, death. By all rights, the young Hebi should also have lost his chance for life that moment, except the egg had absorbed the worst of the blow, leaving a weak hatchling clinging to life in the middle of a harsh desert. The Shifting Expanses were not a gentle land, outside of the spires where technology had forcibly tamed nature and shut out that which it could not control. Barely breathing, Hebi’s chances for survival seemed remote at best, but the very same bolt of lightning that almost doomed him saved him. The shards of egg shell - both his and his unfortunate sibling’s, sparked with leftover energy, and the lightning in his core draw him to them. His parents returned to their ruined nest to find a single hatching munching away on egg shell, in a manner more akin to a pearlcatcher than a coatl. Panicked, they stopped him, but he’d already eaten enough. The glow in his eye wasn’t quite right, far from the natural blue they’d learnt to expect from their previous nest, but there was little they could do about it. Later, when the rest of the clan met him, whispers that he’d been blessed by the Stormcatcher himself arose from the more pious dragons. His parents clung to that belief, finding comfort in the implications it brought. Hebi was not, in fact, blessed by the Stormcatcher, or anything at all. He’d been simply lucky that circumstances had fallen the way they did, and despite the whispers of his birth clan, clung stubbornly to the fact that his survival was down to natural forces, and not some twisted workings of a deity too ensconced inside his factory to ever pay attention to the deserted lands outside. The fact that storms always made his blood sing was something he kept to himself, unwilling to give them another reason to deify him. The infused lightning he’d consumed as a hatchling had simply merged with his natural magic, giving him a greater affinity for the element. Secrets could not be kept forever, though, and a too-nosy skydancer with a too-sensitive set of antennae eventually found him out - and could not be persuaded to silence. Faced with further worship he had done nothing to warrant, Hebi fled his homeland, traipsing far, far away in the hopes that in one of the other lands, there would be a place he could just be a simple dragon. Mutated, perhaps, but just another dragon. He set his eyes on the Scarred Wasteland, words of the abominations of nature frequently found there alluring. He’d fit right in, or so he thought. He never made it that far. His travels took him through the Starfall Isles, a mysterious land he’d never known much about, and learnt that mutations were not exclusive to their neighbours. In fact, mutations of magic were far more prevalent amongst the nausea-inducing chalcedony. What should have been a simple stop for the night in a small Arcane clan became a life-long home. Personality Hebi is a highly practical dragon, and refuses to believe anything and everything out of the ordinary is a blessing from a deity. That’s not to say he’s atheist - the powers of the deities are real, and living in the Arcanist’s lands he would have to be a fool to deny it - but he always requires proof that a deity had a claw in an unusual event. His greatest love will always be the flash of lightning in the night sky, even if it’s a rarer occurrence in the Starfall Isles than his homeland. When storm clouds brew in the skies above, he will always settle on the highest peak to watch it, entirely unafraid. Sometimes he’ll even take wing to dance with the lightning in the sky. Perhaps it’s the lightning inside of him, but Hebi is also quite a volatile dragon, quick to snap if aggravated - and just as quick to calm again. Despite this, he loves fiercely, with plenty of room in his heart to love two mates equally. Role Within The Clan Despite being inherently a mage, with his large reserves and lightning magic, Hebi considers himself far more of a scientist and busies himself with the workings of the sky. His ability to sense weather, and in particular advancing storms, became far more valuable once they relocated to their current lair, floating up above the Observatory with nothing to defend themselves from the worst the weather could send their way. When he isn’t warning of dangerous weather approaching, Hebi can be found researching the science behind the storms. If a dragon asks particularly nicely, when Hebi is in a good mood, he might even put on a little show with his own lightning. Appearance Splattered with pink markings that may have once been the membrane of his destroyed egg - or his sibling’s - and jagged lines across his body, Hebi is not a conventionally attractive dragon. As far as coatls go, he is not particularly bright nor vibrant with brown wings and broken blue body, but he spent so much of his early life busy convincing dragons he wasn’t special that he completely missed the fact that he should desire a colourful plumage. Abilities Mélée Hebi has never had to learn to fight with his claws, and while Kagayaku and Hoseki despaired at his adamant use of a single ability in a fight, his magic is devastating enough that there was really no way to convince him to get his claws bloody. Magic Hebi’s magic is tinged with lightning, giving it a destructive power far beyond a regular dragon with similar size reserves. Despite calling himself a scientist, and not a mage, he utilises his magic to devastating effect when he desires - waving it off as science because he understands how it works whenever anyone points out that it’s powerful magic. Relationships Toki The pair of them joined the clan at similar times, and have been inseparable ever since. The last dragons in the clan to realise that they were actually dating, when Toki wants to escape the pressures of healing, he’ll always be found clambering into Hebi’s den without waiting for an invitation, and Hebi considers Toki’s affinity for healing to be true magic. Neither realised they had long since become mates until Wana joined the clan years later. Wana When the deaf spiral had scrambled onto their island and promptly decided to make it her home, Hebi had thought little of it. His indifference had not lasted long, however, when the first storm since her arrival captured her attention and held it. Despite being unable to hear the thunder, she could see the beauty of the storm, appreciating it in a way few could. How, exactly, the spiral fell into their relationship and captured both of their hearts equally, none of them knew, but Hebi always makes a point to seek her out whenever a storm approaches - if he isn’t already by her side. Trivia * Hebi (蛇) is Japanese for snake. Category:Lightning Dragon Category:Male Category:Coatl Category:Scientist Category:Mage